


Don't pay no mind to the demons

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Family, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Incest, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor and Loki at a truck stop at the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't pay no mind to the demons

(1)

The first time Loki says, "Think maybe they'll pay for us both?" they're standing in the lot watching the trucks come in.

This is Thor's favorite time of the night: before he has to put on the face, when it's just the rumble of the engines and the ground trembling beneath their feet, and the air is cold and sharp and clean.

"What are you talking about," Thor asks, barely listening. He looks out for his regulars, the ones that pay him decently enough and won't stiff him. Sometimes he gets lucky, and it's all guys he knows. Sometimes, not so much.

Loki reaches out, touches the side of Thor's mouth with his fingers.

Thor weaves out of the way. "Don't."

"Your lipstick's bleeding," Loki says. He puts his thumb to his mouth and wets it, and Thor has to wait as he fusses until he's satisfied.

Thor wants to tell him: no one cares if his lipstick is smudged, but Loki won't listen. He's a perfectionist; he says it's important, so it's important.

"There," Loki says, and nods his head. "And I was thinking, I'm old enough now."

"Dont be stupid." He puts a hand on Loki's chest and pushes him gently away. "Go on, get. You know the drill."

Loki looks annoyed, but he obeys, makes himself scarce.

Thor tucks his hands into his jeans pockets, scuffs his sneakers against the gravel as someone approaches.

"Hey, baby. Candy, right?"

"Yeah, that's me," Thor says, and smiles.

 

(2)

Loki puts the make-up on him, and takes it off again. Some of the shit looks expensive: Thor picks up one slim box of eye-shadow, says, "This says Chanel. How did you get this?"

"If you don't ask I won't have to lie to you," Loki says. "Now close your eyes."

When Thor opens them again, he's transformed. Smoky eyes, delicate cheekbones, bubblegum pink lips. It's different each night, as Loki experiments with colors and styles.

Loki does magic, that's what he does.

"I wish this fuzz didn't start growing almost immediately after I shave it off." He rubs his fingers against Thor's jawline. They used to be able to go for more than a week before the gold stubble became noticeable, but now Thor can feel it rough against his hand every couple of mornings, and it always ruins the illusion. "You're just too old," Loki says, sighing dramatically. "You'll be twenty soon. That's ancient."

"Fuck you, I still have three years to go."

"Three years, five months and seventeen days," Loki says, and smiles faintly. "Give or take."

 

(3)

Sometimes, when they're curled up on the bed together and Loki's tracing the bruises on Thor's hips he'll say, "When I get older you won't have to do this anymore."

Thor says, "You're not gonna take my place. I won't let you."

"We'll see." He stops, and when he begins again his voice is ice cold, dead almost. "I hate them," he says. "I hate all of them. Sometimes I hate Mom and Dad too. Everyone. Except maybe you."

"You shouldn't. There's no point."

"Of course there's a point. Hatred is the point."

Thor won't win this argument, so he draws Loki close to him, tucks his head under his chin until he falls asleep, his breath moist against Thor's skin.

 

(4)

Dad said, "Come on, I'm taking you guys out for ice-cream."

Thor was ecstatic, but Loki refused to go. Cried and cried and called out for Mom, but she'd locked herself in her bedroom a week ago and Thor knew she wouldn't come out for at least another month, from the tightness around Dad's eyes and the way he yelled at the two of them for making even the smallest of noise.

"Enough," Thor said finally, tugging on Loki's arm, because Dad had gone quiet. "Stop acting like a baby, and grow up."

Loki stopped mid-wail, and hiccuped. "All right," he said, closed his mouth into a thin line. Thor wiped the tears away with the back of his sleeve.

Dad said, "You know I love you boys, right? Yeah, you know I do."

He bought them both giant cones of ice-cream, Chocolate Mint for Loki and Rocky Road for Thor, and dropped them off at the side of a dusty road.

"Where you going," Thor asked. The ice-cream was too cold, it hurt his teeth.

"I'll be back," Dad said, and got back into the truck.

They both watched him drive off.

Thor held on to Loki's hand all day and waited, even though Loki kept tugging at him. "He's not coming back," Loki said, because he always knew the truth before Thor did, always.

"He's coming back," Thor said, more for Loki's benefit than anything. Loki just shook his head, and squeezed Thor's hand.

 

(5)

Thor remembers different people, sometimes. Kind voices, a house that was warm and filled with love. He remembers being loved. He tries to talk to Loki about it, but Loki screws up his face and stubbornly refuses to believe him. "Your memory's playing tricks on you. There was never anything better than this."

Funny thing is, Loki's not in those memories, not at all.

 

(6)

"You're a really good looking kid, you know," is the thing Thor hears the most. "Real pretty."

"Yeah," he says in reply, "Thanks," because it doesn't really mean anything, and it doesn't change how they behave: he has to rely on other cues to figure out if it's gonna be a good night or not.

They like to wind locks of his hair in their hands, they like him on his knees. Sometimes they just want to talk, but that's almost worse. Thor doesn't want to feel bad for them, but he inevitably does. Some of them are just lonely, and Thor doesn't have a lot, but at least he has Loki.

 

(7)

There are other lizards that drift around, but Loki doesn't get along with most of them, and after Thor started getting popular they didn't want to have much to do with him either, so it's usually just the two of them.

Sometimes the guy that owns the diner at the truck stop gives them food for free, which he doesn't do for any other lizard. It's because of Loki, but Loki won't tell him why, and with Loki sometimes it's better not to press too hard - the truth tends to be stuff Thor doesn't wanna hear or is better off not knowing.

Loki asks, "What's it like?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know."

The waitress comes over, holds out a coffee pot. "More coffee, sweetie?" Thor pushes his cup at her. She's new, Thor's never seen her before. Her nametag says _Cynthia._

"Where's Arlene?"

"Quit. Just up and left, according to Matt. Good luck for me, eh?" Her smile cracks her make-up some.

Thor says, "Thanks for the coffee, Cynthia."

"Call me Cin, sweetie. Everyone else does."

Loki says, as soon as she's gone, "Well?"

"It's just sex. Go download some porn or whatever if you wanna know."

"You started at fourteen." Loki pulls Thor's coffee cup over, and Thor's too tired to tell him he's too young to drink coffee.

But he makes a face when he takes a sip, says, "That's disgusting. I don't know how you can drink that."

"You're too young," Thor says. "Okay? You're too young. Okay."

But Loki's growing: thirteen and he started to shoot up, and now he's almost Thor's height, all gangly pale limbs that he doesn't quite know what to do with yet, and he - he hangs around the lot too much and he gets noticed.

Thor has to drag him away once or twice, flirting with a trucker, and he always spits furiously at Thor, but Thor he just keeps saying no, and eventually Loki gives in. "Why is this so important to you?"

"It just is," Thor says. "I take care of you. That's enough - isn't it enough?"

"But we could have more."

"We have enough."

 

(8)

There's this one guy: Thor could tell, just from looking at him. Too nervous, too angry looking. Told Thor he reminded him of his ex.

"Yeah," he keeps saying, as Thor gets into the truck, because of the extra fifty he offered, "she was a fucking bitch, you know. Cunt couldn't even understand why the fuck I'm working so hard - all this for her, right? They're all fucking cunts, right?

"You mean women?"

"That's what I said. You know you remind me of her, 'cept how she wasn't really blonde." He twirls a strand of Thor's hair around his finger. "Bet you're a real blonde."

"Look," Thor says, edging away. "I don't mean -"

"You're so stupid," Loki says as he's putting ice to Thor's face. "I can't believe how stupid you are."

"He gave me an extra hundred," Thor replies. Mumbles, really. His cheek is swelling up something awful. Hurts to breathe, almost.

"What use is that if you cannot work for the next month?"

Thor worries at the cut on his lip, prods at it with his tongue until it opens again, starts bleeding. "Worked through worse. This is nothing."

Loki hisses, says, "I remember his face. You know I never forget faces. If I see him again I will kill him." He means it, too. Loki always means it, whenever he's not lying through his teeth. Thor lifts his arms, pulls him into a hug, doesn't let go.

Loki pulls away, finally, makes Thor undress. He stands there for a while, Thor's clothes bundled in his arms, as Thor worries idly at a scratch. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Loki only shakes his head. He draws a bath for Thor, past his protests, makes him sit in it until the water turns tepid, counts every single bruise. There's still makeup on his face, and Thor reaches for the soap but Loki hisses and takes it from him, reaches for whatever gunk he claims you're supposed to use to remove face paint.

Thor tries not to wince whenever the cotton touches a bruise, but Loki notices anyway. "Sorry," he mutters.

"It's okay."

Thor starts to shiver after a while, and Loki says, "Get out, come on."

There's a hard set to his face that Thor can't stand, so he does whatever Loki says, follows him to the bed and slides under the covers with him, their bodies pressed together. "For heat," Loki says.

The kiss is chaste at first, just Loki sweetly pressing his lips to a bruise on the side of Thor's mouth. Then it deepens, and Loki's opening his mouth, sliding his tongue past Thor's teeth.

Thor breaks it off, too late. "Loki, don't."

"Shh," Loki says, and cradles Thor's head in his hands. "It will be okay, I promise."

Afterwards, Loki says, "Do you want to know a secret?"

"Sure," Thor says, drowsy. He slides his hand to the small of Loki's back, leaves it there.

"I remember the day they brought you home."

"What do you mean?"

"Dad gave you to Mom, and you were crying so hard, and you wouldn't stop crying, but she was so happy and she kept hugging you and kissing you, and then you stopped."

"I don't understand," Thor says, moving onto his back. There's a hot, burning spike low in his belly. "You're younger than me, that's not -"

"And Dad told me you're my new brother, that you'd always take care of me."

The ceiling's starting to blur, Thor blinks but it only makes it worse. "Why are you telling me this?"

And why now? But he doesn't say that. He knows why now.

"Because you should know."

"No, no. It doesn't matter, it doesn't."

Loki puts his head on Thor's chest, against his heart. "Doesn't it?" His voice is very small.

"You're my brother," Thor says. "That's all that's important. Our memories play tricks on us, that's all."

 

(9)

Mom was sick all the time, and Dad was taking care of her. That's what Thor used to say, whenever they asked him why he missed so much school.

Some social worker dropped by once, because of a bruise on Loki's cheek, but it was a good week for Mom and she charmed them, and Thor sat by her side and pretended everything was okay, and when the social worker asked him questions alone he said, "Everything's good. I love my brother."

That they would be separated, if they were found out, was the only thing Thor was worried about. That couldn't happen.

Loki lied, naturally, because Thor told him to.

"You don't look alike at all," the woman said, before she left.

"What?"

"Your brother."

Thor only shrugged, too relieved that she was leaving to pay much attention to her words. He never saw her again, and Dad got more careful about leaving them alone with Mom.

"What if I'm like her," Loki asks.

"You're not like her."

"No, you don't know how I feel sometimes."

"How do you feel?"

"Like I'm going mad. Like everything is just bubbling under the surface, and I can't hold it back." Loki's hair is too long. Thor itches to cut it, but Loki won't let him. It keeps falling into his eyes, and he never brushes it properly.

Thor reaches out, tucks messy strands behind his ears. "If you were crazy, you wouldn't be worrying that you were."

Loki looks unconvinced. "But don't you ever?"

"No," Thor says.

It's the truth, he never has. He sees so much of Mom in Loki, and some parts of Dad as well. Dad's rage and hate, mostly. And Mom's smile, and that fragility she wore like a cracked eggshell. But he only sees himself when he looks into the mirror. But that must be how it is for everyone.

"You're not going crazy," Thor says. "Not when you got me."

 

(10)

Loki only kisses him when he's not Candy, when he's Thor. He makes Thor take off his make-up, makes him wash the hairspray out. Then he pushes strands of wet hair out of Thor's face and cradles it in his hands, presses their lips together. Thor sighs, and reaches for him, like he always does.

"We should go somewhere," Loki says. "We need to leave here."

"One moment you wanna turn tricks, the next you want us to leave. Where we gonna go?"

"I don't know. New York. LA. You're pretty, I bet you could be an actor."

"I'm not pretty," Thor says, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "Boys aren't pretty."

"Speak for yourself." Loki sniffs, and makes a show of clutching at his shoulder. "I bet I could make you a star, though. You have that shine."

And Thor's knees hurt from scraping gravel, and the back of his throat is itching again, and so he says, harsh, "You're so full of it, is what you are." He's sorry, almost immediately after, even though Loki's hurt is quickly buried beneath a surly shrug.

"Fine," he says after a while. "We'll just rot here until you're too old and no one wants you anymore."

But Loki doesn't understand. Thor can't think of anything else but surviving today, and that's all he can do. Loki can consider the future, that's his prerogative, but Thor, he can only think: I gotta get through this night.

Or maybe he does, because he takes Thor's hand, twines their fingers together, doesn't say anything else.


End file.
